The present invention relates to automatic equipment used for reading utility meters such as electric, gas, or water meters.
Many companies provide automatic meter reading equipment which is capable of reading meters on customer premises and transmitting such meter readings automatically to a central billing computer. Typical systems use both telephone and radio schemes for transmitting such metering readings to the central billing computer of the utility. The present invention relates to automatic meter reading equipment which uses a modem to communicate over a telephone line to a central billing computer located at the utility office. In particular, the invention relates to a so-called "dial inbound" meter interface unit (MIU) which interfaces one or more of a customer's on-site utility meters to a telephone line. In the past, there have been on-site metering reading equipment having modem capability which was capable of receiving telephone calls from a central utility billing computer through the use of special equipment located at the central office of the telephone company, and there have also been on-site meters with modems which were capable of transmitting telephone calls to a central billing computer.